


Complicity

by bending_sickle



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-04
Updated: 2014-08-04
Packaged: 2018-02-11 18:14:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2078181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bending_sickle/pseuds/bending_sickle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kate catches up with Derek in New York City.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Complicity

**Author's Note:**

> Lost my voice in New York City  
> Guess you always knew
> 
> \- Leonard Cohen, _The Pro 1973_

She found him in a New York bar. Daddy always said loose threads were good for finding the next spool, and he was right. All Kate had to do was follow the two Hales she’d spared from the fire until they led her to a new pack. Omegas were good for that, furry little homing missiles on a leash, searching out packs like their lives depended on it, because they did. 

These two weren’t hard to track. Mostly Kate just had to slick a few palms at ticket offices and keep her car behind a Grey Hound or other. They never once looked over their shoulders all the way across the country, still weighed down by grief.

The bar was dark, rank and cheap. The bourbon was cheaper, filling her mouth with sugar and fumes. Kate shifted on her stool and glanced up at the mirror behind the bar, looking for the boy. He was wearing leather and a frown, hunched over a drink he wasn’t old enough to have. 

This was the first time Kate had set a proper eye on him since Beacon Hills. From a distance, he almost looked like a grown man. The shoulders Kate would dig her teeth in had broadened, the arms she would run her nails down were thicker than she remembered, and the stubble on his face looked rougher than the shadow she used to kiss. The dark circles under his eyes were entirely new, brushstrokes of the past weeks, giving him a haunted look. Or was that hunted?

"Hello, puppy," Kate whispered over her glass, smiling wide when he looked up, his face draining like he’d seen a ghost. Kate took a sip of her drink and watched as myriad of emotions play over his face. When his shoulders tensed, hands dropping to splay flat on the table, she turned her back to him and waited.

The cloying taste of bourbon had almost left her mouth when she started wondering whether she had misjudged Derek, that maybe she’d broken him too far, maybe he’d learned his lesson too well, but then she looked up into the mirror and smiled. Kate pulled her purse off the stool next to her and pushed it back with her foot, all the while keeping her eyes locked on the young werewolf who stood glowering behind her.

"You going to be a good dog and sit?"

In the mirror, she saw Derek’s shoulder jerk up, roll back, and she knew he was making a fist and holding himself back. Idly she wondered if his claws had come out.

He sat down beside her, eyes fixing on hers in the mirror.

"What do you want?" he growled, and Kate’s smile slipped into something a little more comfortable. 

She swiveled around and studied his profile, the hard muscle in his clenched jaw. Her knee pressed up against his thigh. “Booty call?”

His fangs pressed against his lower lip. “Fuck you,” he said, his words coming out distorted by teeth and anger.

"Mean to," she countered, leaning closer, wanting to push him towards the edge, maybe even off it, wanting to see if he would take her down with him. Derek tensed and dipped his head away, lip rising in a silent snarl, but he kept the leash on his wolf tight. Kate was dying for him to try something, anything, fight, flight or maybe even fuck, right there in the crowded bar, but knew he wouldn’t, not with everyone watching.

Which was why the claws digging into her thigh were a surprise.

Kate slipped forwards on the stool and almost onto Derek’s lap, grinning wide in his face as he dug his claws in deeper and pulled her closer. He gripped her shoulder with his free hand and squeezed, making her whole arm tingle as nerves, veins and arteries were crushed against bone. She responded with a grip of her own just above his elbow and laughed as pain flickered over his face. 

Sitting like that, she realized, nose to nose, legs intertwined and hands all over each other, a watcher might have taken them for lovers. Kate laughed at the thought and dipped her head in quick, running her tongue across Derek’s lips and fangs before he could jerk his head back. His hands flexed harder into her, and Kate just gave as good as she got.

"Are you here to finish the job?" His eyes flashed blue for an instant, a brief flicker of lightning, a crack in his control, and Kate almost cheered. "Are you going to kill me?"

"You and your sister, you mean," she corrected, her voice husky with pain. At his look, Kate resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "That’s not how it works, sweetie. I already finished a job, remember? I’ve got a new one now."

The grip on her shoulder slackened for a moment as the gears turned once more. “You know about -“

"Mommy’s side of the family? Oh, honey, you should know better than to run back to the brood bitch."

"So you’re going to kill them? Kill us all?"

"That’s the plan," she shrugged her free shoulder. If he was going to say the obvious, then so was she.

"No."

"No?"

"I’ll stop you. The pack will stop you."

"Tell me," she said, leaning in close, eyes wide and curious, "would that be before or after they tear you apart?"

Derek jerked back, his hand dropping from her shoulder. “What?”

"You’re going to tell them how I killed your family, right? How I burned them down to ash in your childhood home?" Kate dipped her head to the side. "Are you also going to tell them how exactly it was that I learned all your little secrets?"

The claws in her thigh retracted and Derek’s hand started to slip off, but she grabbed his wrist. “Are you going to tell them how we fucked?” She drew his hand up her thigh. “How you told me everything?” She traced his fingers over her groin. “How it’s all your fault?”

"No. _No._ ” Derek pulled his hand out of her grasp.

"You were sleeping with the enemy, puppy. What happened to your family, we did that together." Derek looked like he was going to be sick. "Oh please, you’ve been telling yourself this all the way across the country. You know it’s true."

Derek turned away from her and pressed his hands onto the counter. There was blood under his fingernails, blunt and human now though they were. He curled his hands into fists.

"I’ll kill you. If you touch any of them, I’ll kill you."

"You can try." She reached up and wrapped her hand around the back of his neck, dipping her fingers into his hair. "But the second you do, I’ll make sure your precious new pack knows all about our pillow talk."

Derek dipped his head down, away from her touch. Kate dug her nails into his scalp, lightly, like she used to do when they kissed. Derek whined.

"I’ll tell you what, though," she said, moving to stand behind him, wincing at the pain in her thigh. She draped herself over his back - God, his body was ripening like a peach, all firm and delicious - and whispered into his ear. "Why don’t you point me in another direction? Someplace out of New York." She dipped her nose against his skin and breathed in. She ran her tongue over his earlobe. "Got any suggestions?" She felt him shudder against her and it made her toes curl. Derek whined again and Kate waited, let him put the pieces together in the only way they would.

When he spoke, his voice was thick and low, and Kate wondered if maybe he would cry if she pushed just a little bit harder. “Conway,” he said. “New Hampshire.” 

"Anyone I can visit?" she purred. Waited. Felt his chest spasm.

"Dearborne."

"Thank you, puppy," she said, and kissed the nape of his neck. "I’ll send you a postcard."


End file.
